NEW DELHI: Indian cable companies have started investing significantly in technology to enable efficient billing and collections from local cable operators (LCOs), according to India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra), which also said that cable companies are also incentivising the LCOs to adopt this shift, by offering them a higher revenue share.

The firm said that most multiple-system operators (MSOs) with pan-India presence have commenced a shift in their business model to the fixed billing B2B model as an attempt to improve collections.

According to Ind-Ra, the a way forward for MSOs will be to agree on a certain fixed amount with the LCO (B2B billing) so that cash collections are delinked from actual collections by LCO’s from their respective subscribers. Further, this also enables billing on a pre-paid basis as the revenue share is pre-decided.

The report revealed that one of the large cable companies has invested in an online portal for the LCOs, which improves transparency levels and also helps in the activation and managing of packages.

The new collection mechanism enables the customer to pay the gross amount to the LCO and the LCO maintains a pre-paid balance in his account with the MSO. Once the package is activated/ renewed in the system, the MSO’s share would be directly debited from the pre-paid balance of the LCO.

Ind-Ra said that this online platform follows an automated dunning process, where each pack has an expiry date and if not recharged before the due date the system will automatically disconnect the signal. In case LCO’s want to provide credit to certain customers, the LCO will need to make the payment on behalf of them before the expiry date and collect the same from the subscriber later.

“The above concept is well formulated in-principal; however the acceptance from the LCOs may need incentives, namely higher revenue share and some basic level of training on day-to-day operations,” Ind-Ra said.

Ind-Ra notes that the acceptance by LCOs will vary, based on the local dynamics, given the different degrees of resistance to change, and transparency. In the long run Ind-Ra believes the business profile of MSOs will benefit from a transparent and more effective collection system.

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